MacBook fans wont turn off

[127377]

The fans on my late 06 MacBook have been running at 6200 RPM for over a week now. I have tried the Apple hardware test, and resetting the PMU, but neither fixed it. The first thing people would tell me is I have a process doing this, but I am idling with no apps open, with the CPU at 98% free. The vents are not blocked, there is no dust inside the machine or anything like that. The only thing that fixes it is taking out the battery (I tried everything), and the temp immediately drops from 180* and holding to 130* in about a minute, and the fans go back to a normal RPM. It is only a temporary fix, because it is now an under-clocked computer and is only kept on by a little magnet. Not good for long term use...

After installing the most recent security update and rebooting (came automatically in software update), the fans ran like normal for a day, and after one reboot the problem came back...


So, with what you know, what do you recommend I do? Any ideas on what could be wrong?

Thanks!
- Billy

 

[David G.]

Have you ever used anything like SMC Fancontrol?

 

[uberjason]

Run Activity monitor, see what process is running / CPU utilization. Kill that process, does the fan slow down within a minute? I had a rogue widget that was hanging and causing the CPU utilization on one core to be 80-95% nonstop and that caused the CPU to heat up and hence the fan to keep spinning hard to keep it cool.

 

[upsguy27]

Run Activity monitor, see what process is running / CPU utilization. Kill that process, does the fan slow down within a minute? I had a rogue widget that was hanging and causing the CPU utilization on one core to be 80-95% nonstop and that caused the CPU to heat up and hence the fan to keep spinning hard to keep it cool.

I think he said that his CPU is 98% free.